I keep glancing at the date to make sure it isn’t somehow 2003 again. Even though it reads 2025, there seem to be constant reminders of the disastrous mistakes that led up to the most catastrophic American foreign policy decision in recent memory, the war on Iraq. Despite the costly lessons of the past and the flashing warning signs before us today, President Trump seems poised to press the button on joining Israel’s attack on Iran. Doing so could be an even bigger mistake.
The echoes are numerous. A complete disregard for international law and diplomatic alternatives. The members of Congress gung-ho about the use of American military force. The Cheneyesque claims about mushroom clouds in the United States are being repeated. The British-based Economist is telling us it has seen a bombshell intelligence dossier. Bill Kristol, who famously told us the Iraq War would only last two months back in 2003, is still, well, Bill Kristol.
Despite the similarities, there are actually important differences in this moment that make the march to war an even greater folly. First, we have the lessons of the Iraq War, not as speculation but as recent memory. For so many, those memories are of countless loved ones lost in a pointless and counterproductive war.
Second, unlike 2003, when the CIA cooperated with the Bush administration to shape evidence around nonexistent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to sell the war to the American public, today the assessment of the American intelligence community is that Iran “is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.” This assessment, relayed to Congress this spring by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, was entirely dismissed by the president of the United States before the press in recent days. Some reports suggest Gabbard isn’t even at the table during recent discussions with the president about Iran. As controversial as she may be to some, this is still alarming given that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was established after the intelligence failures before 9/11 to make sure that U.S. intelligence agencies were coordinated and properly represented in national security decision-making.
Third, the media environment seems different today than in 2003. In the lead-up to Bush’s war, the media environment, with very few and marginal exceptions, was all in on the cheerleading of the war. Across the spectrum, from Fox News to MSNBC, which fired Phil Donahue for opposing the war, from the New York Post to The New York Times, the banging of war drums all seemed to follow the same conductor.
Today, however, there is something of a battle going on, particularly in the right-wing media space, that pits the Murdoch-owned sphere, racing to manufacture public consent for war, against independent MAGA-land. While this is different in comparison to the past, it is unclear yet whether it will impact the president’s decision-making, but it does foreshadow a possible fracturing of the MAGA coalition if Trump follows in George W. Bush’s footsteps.
As he considers this decision, Trump is likely hearing from indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu and his allied war cheerleaders that this Iran adventure will be a cakewalk. It will be quick and easy: Just bomb one site, he will be told, and he can bask in the glory of being the successful wartime president who finally took out Iran and its nuclear capabilities.
The reality is, however, that there are far more ways for this to go wrong than to go the way it is being sold to Trump. The illegal strike launched by Israel against Iran already set off a war that raises the stakes and brings the U.S. increasingly closer to getting directly involved even if it doesn’t strike. But if it does strike, it sets off a series of consequences that likely lead to a long, drawn-out commitment with no clear exit strategy, again.
An American strike may or may not take out Fordo, but either way it is likely to trigger an Iranian response on American interests in the region. The U.S. would then respond with deeper involvement in Iran, and on and on we go. When and where this ends would be unknown, but it could very well lead to the collapse of the regime in Iran over time.
That process could get increasingly ugly until final collapse, setting the entire region on fire and unleashing chaos on the ground in Iran and millions more refugees around the world. There is also no way of knowing, or really controlling, what would replace the current regime if it falls. But whatever regime comes next will be unlikely to love the people who destroyed its country. This is the Pandora’s box Trump would likely open if he decides to strike. It will do irreparable damage to the region for decades.
It is also the last thing the U.S. needs right now. With China constantly rising, the U.S. should be focused on building the American economy for the coming global challenges, not signing up for decades of destruction and ballooning war debt, again. In this truly perilous moment, a fateful decision that could reset American priorities for the next century sits in the hands of the former host of The Apprentice. But this is reality, not reality TV, and there is simply too much on the line to make this mistake.
The post Can the United States Really Be Marching Toward This Madness Again? appeared first on New Republic.
